Hi All
My husband had a total thyroidectomy last year and radioactive iodine trearment, It was the papilliary type.

He is having a RAI follow-up Scan done monday and the blood tests done before show that his thyroglobulin antibodies are higher than the normal range - does this always point towards a recurrence of the cancer?

If he has antibodies, the tg test is less valuable as a "tumor marker"---and even he didn't, tg shows thyroid activity, which can show up way before any tumor is there. Is his tg antibodies up, or his tg? It's different. Talk to the doctor about the results. He can also have an ultrasound of the neck which may be even more valuable than a whole body scan.

I had scan and sonogram of my neck and they didn't find any lumps or bumps, but my markers are at 5. Twice what they should be, but still according to my Endocrinologist, not that big. He believes that the tumor is somewhere in the neck area. I'll need RAI again though. Good luck to your husband and God bless.

I had scan and sonogram of my neck and they didn't find any lumps or bumps, but my markers are at 5. Twice what they should be, but still according to my Endocrinologist, not that big. He believes that the tumor is somewhere in the neck area. I'll need RAI again though. Good luck to your husband and God bless.

Your situation is EXACTLY like mine. TG 5--probably in the neck. Is your TG while on Thyrogen or on medication. That makes a difference.

As far as antibodies go, I read years ago that if they don't go down after several years, that could mean a problem. I just found out about heterophile antibodies which make the TG reading falsely high.

Your situation is EXACTLY like mine. TG 5--probably in the neck. Is your TG while on Thyrogen or on medication. That makes a difference.

As far as antibodies go, I read years ago that if they don't go down after several years, that could mean a problem. I just found out about heterophile antibodies which make the TG reading falsely high.

They tested my blood AFTER I took the Thyrogen for my scan (I wondered about that). Wouldn't that have made it high? This is the first time I've taken Thyrogen for scans AND treatment, the other 2 times I only took it for the scans. The Endo doesn't seem overly concerned and I haven't heard about the antibodies. When I was first diagnosed and tested in 2009, it was 12, last year it was 6, so it seems to be going down. I've just wondered how many times I'll have to do the RAI for it to come back normal.

I am really surprised he is doing repeated RAI's, given your TG is going down. That isn't how they do it according to the thyroid cancer guidelines. If you look at those guidelines that were written by the experts, you would see that roughly 1/3 of us have TG where the source cannot be found. And, we live a normal lifespan with it. That is why they do not do repeated RAI's like they did 5-6 years ago. In our situation, RAI is pretty much useless. It does NOT work on thyroid cancer in the lymph nodes most of the time. They found that the risk of damaged salivary glands outweighs the chance that the RAI may work.

Are you in a large city? You might want to get another opinion. If not, you might want to get an opinion at a major hospital that deals with cancer. Even if they found cancer in your lymph nodes in the neck, the cancer centers do NOT do another RAI along with the neck dissection.

Sorry if I am getting you mixed up with the person whose neck lit up.

The Following User Says Thank You to Linda1652 For This Useful Post:Meigan (09-18-2011)